


Tying the Knot

by Willsblackstag



Category: Hannibal (TV), hannigram - Fandom
Genre: Bottom Hannibal Lecter, Drooling, Dubious Consent, First time and at it like rabbits, Fucked senseless, HAPPY HANNIGRAM VALENTINES DAY 2021, Hannibal Lecter has a sensitive prostate, Hannibal has nightmares, Hannibal is sexually frustrated, Hannibal makes a mess, Insecure Hannibal Lecter, Japanese Rope Bondage, Jealous Will Graham, M/M, Non-Consensual Blow Jobs, PWP, Post-Episode: s03e13 The Wrath of the Lamb, Post-Fall (Hannibal), Rope Bondage, Shibari, Skull Fucking, Suspension, Top Will Graham, Will Graham has a big dick, Will Graham loves Hannibal Lecter but avoids the L word like the plague, Will Graham ruins Hannibal Lecter, Will been working out, Will carries Hannibal bridal style, Will is good with knots, Will is shit at comforting Hannibal, Will manhandling Hannibal because he has no grace, Will reads up on shibari, Will tried to kill them, they share a bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-12 10:54:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29134404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Willsblackstag/pseuds/Willsblackstag
Summary: Valentine’s Day Hannigram Porn with Feels.Happy Valentine’s Day to all Fannibals, especially the Top Will / Bottom Hanni enthusiasts.Artwork by the incredible @RTuomas_BTMHann whose shibari prompt resulted in this fic!
Relationships: Will Graham & Hannibal Lecter, Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter
Comments: 8
Kudos: 69





	Tying the Knot

After the fall, Hannibal has nightmares. In them, he is in free-fall, his body having separated from Will’s. When he hits the water, he is bowled over by waves. Sometimes Will is trying to drown him by pushing his head under – sometimes by drowning himself in the process. Other times he simply swims away as Hannibal starts to pass out. Whichever it is, there’s nothing he can do to prevent them plaguing his sleep.

Will has been watching Hannibal. The way the man thrashes in the bed and mumbles his name. Guesses the other is having nightmares of what happened that night on the cliff edge. Or in the water. Ever since they reached the safe house, however, Will has been sleeping soundly. The main cause had been physical exhaustion. But as the days passed, he wondered whether his inner calm had something to do with witnessing the opposite in his companion. A sort of satisfaction to be gained from seeing Hannibal suffer the way he himself used to.

Until one night, stood leaning against the open doorway of the bedroom, he’d watched the man cry. His frightened panting so uncharacteristic and loud in the otherwise silent cabin. It had disturbed him, seeing Hannibal like this, and slowly he had unfolded his arms and stepped closer to the bed. He’d climbed in, eventually, to hold onto the other from behind. His arms acting like a straitjacket. And it had some effect in alleviating the worst – but not all – of Hannibal’s throes. Hannibal himself does not appear to realise what Will is doing, trapped as he is in his subconscious.

The second time Will joins Hannibal in the bed, however, he ends up getting punched in the face, and having enough of the nightmares that are affecting his own sleep and now his physical wellbeing to boot, Will leaves and comes back with a large coil of rope. He ties Hannibal up with it, waking the man in the process, but managing to secure the knot before the other can break free. Recovering from his internal injury, Hannibal still needs to regain his strength compared to Will who, having sustained nothing beyond a number of nasty gashes and severe bruising, had even been able to work out. As a result, it is relatively easy for Will to overpower Hannibal and ignore the indignant verbal abuse hurled his way in response to his actions. But whilst Hannibal protests at first to the treatment, he appears calmer, nonetheless, from being bound. And Will starts reading up on the practice of Shibari as a way of inspiring inner stillness. 

One evening, sat in the chair pulled up beside Hannibal’s bed, Will is chewing his last mouthful of dinner as he watches the other eat.  
“I want to try something,” he says after swallowing and reaching for his glass of water.  
“What is it?” asks Hannibal, looking up curiously from the bowl in his lap.  
“Just something I’ve been reading,” Will utters into the glass and takes a sip. “See if it helps,” he adds, meeting that hooded gaze before it lowers as though touched by the offer.  
“Sure.”

++++

“You can come through now,” he hears the man say, and ventures out of the bedroom into the modest living space. Will is standing in front of the lit fireplace with individual piles of rope coiled like snakes at his feet. Above his head hangs a large metal ring adorned with carabiner clips and attached to a thick piece of rope running up to the hard point fixed to the ceiling. “Take off your clothes,” instructs Will, and he looks down from the equipment to meet that steady gaze. _Confident_. Complying, he slowly pulls the sweater off his head, dropping it to the floor before putting his hands on the waistband of his lounge pants. Dragging the garment off his legs, he leaves his clothes behind like shed skin and paces in his underwear towards the other.

Hannibal is quiet as Will starts tying the rope around his body. He doesn’t ask questions. Only answers when Will asks if one feels too tight – always a _no_. As he works, he feels those eyes on him, watching every move. Suspecting the other of harbouring doubt in his ability, Will looks up and sees Hannibal regarding him with something akin to quiet admiration instead. Not that he needs the man’s approval to proceed. Dropping his gaze, he returns his attention to the rope in his hands. 

Suspension is dangerous. That had been the first sentence in the book. It recommends partial suspension to begin with, but Will has chosen to disregard the advice. After all, this _is_ Hannibal Lecter he’s trussing up and hanging from the ceiling. The latter he does with relative ease, especially now the man has lost weight. Afterwards, he stands back with his hands on his hips to admire his own handiwork.

Suspended horizontally at a few feet off the ground, Hannibal is facing the floor with his arms folded behind his back. A band of ropes run across his chest both over and under his pectorals. They wrap over his upper arms before joining in a large knot above his back together with the rope that binds his wrists. Both ankles have likewise been bound – each to their own thigh – using bands of spaced but interlocking straps of rope. A further two ropes run from each knot at the thigh up to the metal ring. Satisfied he has made no mistakes, Will allows himself a small smile that disappears again when he regards the expression on Hannibal’s face.

Unable to move, a sudden thought crosses his mind. Makes him flex instinctively against the tight confines. _If he tries to leave, I won’t be able to stop him_. Swallowing down the sudden rush of anxiety, he licks his lips and wills himself to remain calm. Relaxed. But he has a feeling the other has already sensed the tremor of disquiet in the air.  
“How does it feel?” Will asks, voice low and steady.  
“Fine,” he lies with his eyes on the floor.  
“I still remember your face when you were hanging in that straitjacket at Muskrat farm,” Will murmurs.  
“I remember yours,” he says quietly in return.  
“You were fearless.”  
“I hadn’t known then what I know now.”  
“What’s that?”  
_That I’m terrified of being abandoned_.

When Hannibal doesn’t answer, Will steps back and lowers himself into the armchair.  
“You don’t have to speak,” he says, picking up the book straddling the armrest. “Just get used to the feeling.” He rests the two page spread in his lap. “Being tied like this is supposed to make you feel vulnerable,” he continues to murmur, pausing with his eyes on the rope tutorial as he considers the concept of a vulnerable Hannibal. “It’s okay to feel that way,” he adds, turning the page.

Will doesn’t leave him suspending for very long due to the stresses of the practice on the body. Even so, his first time is marked predominantly by discomfort of the psychological kind. The fact that Will never left his side, however, did eventually soothe some of his restless agitation. Will staying close. Watching over him. Whilst the man had helped him during his recovery from the bullet wound, Hannibal had not stopped speculating on the end to Will’s care. Had started to obsess somewhat on the notion of each touch being the last. His voice of reason slow to respond in the wake of doubt that tirelessly reminds him he doesn’t know what Will is thinking.

Letting Hannibal down, Will senses relief in the way the other lies bonelessly upon the ground while he works on freeing the rope. His eyes on the marks left in his skin.  
“Does it hurt?” he asks, brushing his thumb against the red tracks in the man’s upper arm.  
“No.”  
“Would you do it again?”  
A beat. Then:  
“Yes.”

While he is unconvinced by the answer, evidence the session had some kind of useful effect on the other comes later in the night when, holding Hannibal once more in his sleep, Will experiences far less violent bouts of thrashing. Can hear his own name being mumbled a lot less, also.

++++

The second time, Hannibal engages him in conversation.  
“Why Shibari?” he asks, the sound of his voice making Will look up from the book. The answer in his gaze.  
“I like the way the rope looks,” he says, returning his eyes to the page, adding, after a pause, “I never got to see you that second time at Muskrat Farm.”  
“You didn’t miss much.”  
“Hm.”  
“I was in no discomfort then.”  
Will looks up.  
“Are you in discomfort now?”  
“No.”  
This is true, for as his eyes roam freely over Hannibal’s suspended body, they eventually stop on the tenting of his underwear. _He’s growing aroused_. Without comment, he returns to his reading.

That night, as he approaches the bed, he senses something being different, and stands there watching down at the back of Hannibal’s head. He doesn’t move, so Will suspects he’s either lying there awake or the Shibari has sent him off on a deep and untroubled slumber. It seems a bit early for the latter, but maybe this is what the man needs, he thinks to himself. When he finally lifts the cover and climbs carefully down onto the bed, he grows conscious of the heat radiating off the other’s skin. Head lying in the pillow, he narrows his eyes at Hannibal’s nape beneath the dim bar of lamplight coming in through the open doorway. It’s pink. He hadn’t imagined it.  
“Hannibal,” he utters.  
Nothing.  
“Hey,” he tries again, staring at the back of the other’s head.  
“Yes, Will,” the man answers in a hushed voice.  
“We can stop if you want.”  
“Stop?”  
“The Shibari.”  
A brief pause. Then:  
“It’s fine.”  
“Sure?”  
“Yes,” he answers, pausing before adding in a half whisper, “I should like for us to continue.”  
“Alright,” Will exhales, shifting to get comfortable. Pausing himself when a thought crosses his mind. It’s the first time he’s been in bed with Hannibal while the other is awake – at least, to his knowledge. “Should I move back to the settee?” he asks, watching up at the ceiling as he lies there on his back.  
“It’s fine.”  
“Sure?”  
“Yes.”  
  
++++

The third time, he feels Will tying new knots that are more intricate than the last and purely decorative. For the man’s own fun or aesthetic pleasure, he presumes. Whichever it is, Hannibal wants to capture and hang each touch on the gallery walls of his mind palace.  
“I feel like a spider in its web,” he says once the other has settled into his chair.  
“You’re the fly.”  
Looking up at the correction, he watches Will turn the page, those blue eyes downcast.  
“In your web?” he says hopefully.  
“Yes,” Will answers simply without looking up. Like he’s been asked whether he would like Hannibal to cook again tomorrow night. Yet that small utterance is enough to make him flex pleasurably against the rope as a new sensation spreads through him – one of security. _Trap me, Will, and never let me go_.

He had grown aroused again during the session. Twice as hard as the last. Inspired as he was by the notion of being captive. Of being wanted. Lying on his side in bed, he desperately needs to masturbate, but doesn’t want to ask Will to leave. So he waits for the longest time, his imagination tormenting him with thoughts of the other pressing against his back and reaching round with a helping hand. His breath blowing warm and steady against his nape. _Stop_. He feels himself pulsating within the confines of his underwear. Decides against trying to secretly touch himself while Will remains at such close proximity. When he attempts to slip stealthily out of the bed, however, he hears the shifting of sheets followed by a sleepy:  
“What’s up?”  
Instead of calmly making his way to the bathroom, he sinks back beneath the cover. Facing the other with his back.  
“Nothing,” he answers.  
“…sure?”  
“Yes.”  
  
++++

The fourth time, Will tells him to remove his shorts. The fire crackling in the fireplace is loud as he hesitates.  
“Is that necessary?” he asks as mildly as he can.  
“You’re not sleeping again,” Will states, holding his gaze as he folds his arms.  
“What has that got-”  
“It’s supposed to be liberating.”  
Hannibal parts his lips.  
“Might help you sleep,” the man continues to say.  
“Freedom in confinement. Somewhat ironic, wouldn’t you say,” he comments idly, attempting to engage the other in conversation to distract from the awkward predicament. But Will is having none of it.  
“So are you taking them off.”   
At the assertive question – rather, statement that he will in fact comply – Hannibal feels a traitorous twinge inside his shorts, and refuses to break eye contact like his stare has the power to stop Will from looking down. Because whilst he hasn’t been able to keep his arousal during these sessions secret, he had believed the man to be indifferent to his bodily urges. A far easier concept to handle than the notion of them becoming sexually aware of each other in the confined space of the cabin. As much as some may believe him to be something of a hedonist, Hannibal finds himself troubled by the thought of them becoming what popular culture would term _friends with benefits_. Making the heart race yet leaving him empty afterwards. Or worse, tormented by memories of Will touching him as a lover. Heart still healing from the betrayal at the cliff side, it is something he both wants and fears with equal vehemence.

For a moment, he thinks the man is going to refuse and walk away. Then he hears the quiet exhale and sees Hannibal pushing his thumbs into the waistband of his shorts. Averting his eyes, he busies himself with picking up the rope.

++++

Once again, he is suspended horizontally, face down. But whereas Will would normally leave him for his armchair at this stage, Hannibal now feels the stroke of new rope upon new areas of skin. Namely, around his waist. Then down. Dividing to run along either side of the root of his penis before coming back together and pulling upwards–  
“Stop,” he grunts as he feels a knot rubbing against his perineum. Feels his penis twitch.  
“Why?” Will asks, voice quietly defiant.  
A pause as he tries to think of the words while the other waits.  
“It’s sensitive,” he confesses instead in a hushed murmur.  
Will hums noncommittally. Then continues to pull on the rope until it nestles deep in the crevice of his cheeks. That hard knot strategically positioned to put pressure on his prostate through that small yet devastating stretch of skin. Something the man had read in his book, perhaps.

While Hannibal confesses to a weakness, Will confesses to himself how much he enjoys being in control. The only time he truly felt he had the reins to his life in his grasp was when he’d made the decision to throw them over. To feel it just the once before his death. Knowing Hannibal would be feeling the opposite. It was meant to have been a victory. His last word in their monstrous chapter. And yet, when they hit the water, it was as though his soul had flown, leaving him with base instincts. One of them being to survive. Another to save his companion. Because what he’d said at the Uffizi gallery – words chosen carefully to provoke the other – had been as true then as they are now. He just couldn’t accept it at the time. The notion of life being inconceivable without Hannibal. The warped homoerotic take on being conjoined. Appearing alarmingly sudden and without reason or logical source. Yet writhing nonetheless in the forefront of his drugged mind as a series of distorted yet sensual imagery. He had striven to dismiss the episode, but only ended up burying the unsettling thoughts. The same thoughts that have returned to crowd him now as he sits in the armchair with the book in his hands.

"Are you sexually frustrated?”  
Will’s abrupt question interrupts his attempt to focus on unpleasant thoughts in the battle against his burgeoning arousal.  
“No,” he answers without opening his eyes.  
“So you haven’t been trying to masturbate in the bed.”  
“No.”  
_He knows_.  
“Are you scared I’ll walk out in disgust?”  
He parts his lips.  
_Yes_.

He hears Will putting down the book and rising from the chair. Resists the urge to open his eyes as footsteps come his way, until the man stops right in front of him. Heat radiating through his garments together with an unfamiliar scent. Before he can open his eyes, hands grab him by the hair the same time hips push forward.  
“What if I am,” he hears the low murmur from above and understands the other is referring to his own sexual needs as he feels the growing shape of him pressing into his face. While those hands continue to pin his head to Will’s crotch, giving him little choice but to inhale his scent through the bulging material of his trousers, he realises somewhat belatedly the lack of height difference between his head and Will’s. The latter of which is being hastily pulled from the V of metal teeth and an elastic waistband shoved down out of the way. Hannibal barely has the chance to look at the appendage before he feels Will pushing into his mouth and begin immediately to move. His fingers gripping tight on his hair as his hips buck to plunge the last few inches past his lips. The unbridled force of it making Hannibal choke and his bound body start to sway. He hears a grunt and a curse before Will slams suddenly down his throat, the hard clasp of hands on the back of his head preventing him from moving as he snatches air through the nose. It’s almost impossible not to bite down. Sink his teeth through pulsing veins and turgid flesh. Taste the hot torrent of his blood. Yet a monster in him says _no_. _Feed him to me_. Without a tongue of its own, Hannibal feels its hunger through his penis as it begins to drool in crude mimicry of the rivulets escaping the corners of his lips. When Will finally pulls out, he does so scraping himself against the sharp edges of Hannibal’s teeth and with strings of saliva trailing in the air between them like transparent reins. 

He hangs his head as Will moves round him, lips remaining parted to his recovering breaths.  
“I’ve thought about this…”  
The quiet, dark murmur precedes a movement in the ropes. _No. Just one_. Pressing his lips together, he stifles any sound threatening to escape his lips as the taut rope rubs against his anus. The knot digging into him.   
“Ever since she told me how you looked…”  
Suspecting the man is referring to Alana and the episode at Muskrat Farm, Hannibal is about to make the reference when the rope grinds slowly back and forth, making him twitch all over.  
“How you looked on your knees.”  
Closing his eyes, he sinks his teeth into his bottom lip as Will continues to speak.  
“She cut you free to save me,” he murmurs. “But who will save you now?”   
Eyes slipping open, he hears the quiet rustle of something being pulled from a trouser pocket. Recognises the sound of a knife flicking open before the tension is suddenly released from the chastity rope and he feels hot hands grab and spread open his cheeks. Swallowing, Hannibal licks his dry lips.  
“I don’t know if I can,” he utters, turning his face to the side. “Maybe that’s just fine.”

Gazing upon the man’s entrance, he smiles twitchily hearing Hannibal using his own words.  
“He wanted you to become one with the Dragon,” he murmurs, spitting disdainfully at the pucker as a sudden tidal wave of jealousy crashes over him. “Do you remember what you said?” He answers his own question before the other can. “That it was glorious and discomforting.” Spitting into his hand, he runs it hurriedly over himself. “I’ll show you what that means.”

Accepting what is about to happen, he wills his body to relax despite the stress of being tied and suspended. Tries to regulate his breathing as he feels Will prying at him with his thumbs, teasing him open to another warm spatter. Hears him spitting some more before the wet head of a penis is suddenly pressing into him.

Breathing in, he grabs the rope at Hannibal’s back to stop him from moving as he grips the base of his dick with his other hand. Holding himself in place, he presses harder against that pucker until it begins to part from his girth. One last gob of saliva is all he needs to stab his head past the ring of his sphincter, the breaching of the other’s body marked by their sudden groans.  
“Watching you lying at my feet,” he grits through his teeth, “bleeding all over yourself.” The tight clutch of Hannibal’s walls squeezes the air from his lungs as he slowly but surely pushes deeper. “I wanted nothing more,” he continues to utter in increasingly strained syllables until, with a ragged exhale, he finally roots himself whole inside the man. _Than to have you_.

He opens his mouth to say his name, but grunts instead as Will falls immediately to fucking him. Those hips slapping against him without giving either of them time to adjust as he feels his body being tugged back by the rope to meet each thrust. Whilst he has never been penetrated this way – opened up to such a degree only to be rubbed raw from the inside out – the pain of intimacy is a small price to pay, and alleviated, somewhat, by his receptive anatomy. The same culprit that had made riding the motorcycle in Florence almost unbearable, and which had been deemed a mere impracticality until now. It being their first time coupling, however, the occasion is inevitably brief. Over as soon as prolonged contact with his prostate makes him ejaculate. And Will, defenceless against the blind greed of Hannibal’s bowels, reaches his own climax inside him. 

Half collapsing onto the armchair, he watches Hannibal swaying on the ropes, suspending beyond the usual timeframe. Although the man has just come – evidenced by the splatter of semen on the floor beneath him – Will knows he can’t be comfortable. At that thought, his eyes fall on the few small droplets hard to discern against the dark of the wood. _I made him bleed_.  
“What do you think?” he utters breathlessly. “Glorious and discomforting enough for you?”  
“Please,” says Hannibal, his voice thick.  
“What are you asking?” Will murmurs as he continues to watch his bound form through his lashes.  
“You let us live,” comes the quiet statement.  
_Is this forgiveness?  
_“I wish to feel alive, Will,” Hannibal continues to half whisper, his hooded eyes slowly lifting to meet his.  
_For my betrayal?  
_“I need you back inside me.”  
His breathy plea is accentuated by the soft yet provoking _plip_ of semen hitting wood as the man pushes. The gesture antagonising the animal in Will’s skin until it picks him up onto his feet.  
_We are conjoined.  
_Makes him stalk back to that trapped and helpless body.  
_As one.  
_Concerns of the other’s discomfort quite forgotten.

++++

He curses as he comes again inside Hannibal. Suspects he has done so dry despite it being impossible to tell with the mess. _That's all I have_. _You took it all_. Panting hard with sweat rolling off his naked body, he is ready to collapse onto soft furnishings and give his stiff legs a rest. Pulling out of the other, he unplugs a stream of ejaculate that runs back out of Hannibal’s now gaping hole. The sight of it is enough to make him stiffen again – perhaps his own body is equally as insatiable – but concern has had the chance to return now the beast in him is spent. Stepping out from behind Hannibal, he sees his head hanging low and moves to squat down in front of him. Taking his head between his hands, he lifts to see hooded eyes struggling to stay open beneath the sweat-matted spikes of his hair. A fresh string of drool escaping from his open mouth. _Conscious_ _but_ _exhausted_. 

Having lowered Hannibal to the floor, he unties all the rope and sits down beside the other’s sprawled form. His eyes running over the angry red marks made visible by the dying glow of the fireplace.  
“I think I prefer your rope,” Hannibal murmurs.  
“To Mason’s?” Will murmurs back.  
“And Matthew’s.”   
He scoffs to mask the guilt, but the sound he makes is a weak one. Heavy with regret. He debates telling Hannibal about the first time he imagined binding him with rope. Wonders if he'd find it arousing, learning Will had envisaged his decapitation.  
“Is this to become a regular occurrence,” the man asks.  
“I don’t just want you around for your body,” Will answers, pulling up his knees and folding his arms upon them.  
“You want me for my engaging conversations.”  
“Partly.”  
“Do you like it when your wife talks dirty during sex?”  
He looks down at the unexpected question. Sees Hannibal lying with his cheek on the floor as he gazes listlessly at nothing in particular.  
“She doesn’t talk dirty,” he answers, returning his attention to the glowing embers. He waits a while in silence before adding, “Are you still afraid I’m going to walk out on you?”  
“Always,” comes the half whisper.  
_Good_.  
“If I ever have the pleasure of meeting Mrs Graham, can I tell her you tied the knot with me too?”  
“No.”  
“It was worth a try.”  
“What good is marriage if you’re not with the one you love.”  
Another stretch of silence settles between them. Then a movement draws Will’s attention back to Hannibal as he slowly lifts and lays his head down again to face the fire.  
“…what?” says Will, watching the back of his head.  
“I’m not stopping you,” Hannibal murmurs in a quiet voice.  
_From leaving?  
_“You just want me to say it,” he murmurs in return, eyes back on the embers.  
“Say what.”  
“You know I meant you.”  
Silence.  
_You don’t believe me? I suppose it’s a lot to ask after everything.  
_“We should get off the floor,” he murmurs.  
“Just give me a moment, please.”  
Hannibal’s voice is thick with emotion. Will suspects he is crying. Doesn’t know whether he should attempt to comfort the man. He doesn’t feel like it should become a regular thing. Plus, it still feels strange, having never done anything of the sort in the past. Quite the opposite.  
  
++++

Listening to the grunt of effort, he doesn’t protest when Will lifts him off the floor. Is perhaps a little surprised the man does so with relative ease, tucking his arms under his body and lifting him bridal style against himself. It reminds him of the time he’d carried Will back from Muskrat Farm. Never would’ve thought the day would come when the other would feel compelled to return the favour. If not quite with as much care in the handling.

Throwing Hannibal onto the bed, he straightens up with his hands on his hips. Sees the grimace and realises he has probably treated the other a bit too much like a sack of potatoes.  
“Sorry,” he utters, lifting a hand to itch sheepishly at his chest. “Does it hurt?”  
“I’ve made a mess,” says Hannibal quietly, and Will looks down at the semen on the bedding. And on the floor. _Ah_. He turns his face to look back over his shoulder. Sees the dotted trail leading back to the fireplace.

“There’s a wash cloth in the,” he begins to say when Will lowers himself onto his hands and knees upon the bed. Travelling the length of Hannibal’s body, he half collapses on top of him with his face turned to the side as he lets out a loud sigh. He feels heavier than before. The added weight of dense muscle. The result of a combination of exercise and consuming the meat of animals hunted, he presumes. It’s not quite enough to be uncomfortable. Just the right amount to feel trapped in a warm partial embrace until, lying there on his back, the ache of sex and being suspended for a prolonged period soon adds to the heaviness of fatigue. And yet. He wants to stay awake just a little longer. Savour tentatively the new feeling of being grounded.  
“You know the saying, give a man enough rope and he’ll hang himself?” he murmurs.  
Will hums in sleepy acknowledgement.  
“It means anyone given the opportunity to bring about their own downfall will do so by their own volition,” he explains as he gazes through his lashes at the ceiling.  
“You think we’d end up destroying ourselves even if we’d never met?” Will mumbles.  
“I think they got it wrong,” he says instead of answering the question. “It should be hope.”  
Will makes a soft noncommittal sound that neither agrees nor disagrees.  
“My downfall began when I started hoping and believing,” he adds quietly.  
For a moment, nobody says anything as they listen to one another’s breathing in the quiet of the bedroom. Then he feels the weight shifting as Will rolls slowly onto his side, then back. Turning his face, Hannibal watches the hands clasping over the man’s stomach.  
“If it makes you feel any better, we’ve already hit rock bottom,” Will utters. “The only way is up.”  
“I suppose it has been,” says Hannibal, looking up to meet half-drawn blue. “For the past couple or so hours.”  
Will turns his eyes to the ceiling.  
“Ha ha.”

_It feels good. Lying with him like this.  
_Closing his eyes, he is ready to wade into the quiet of the stream. Venturing fearlessly onward as the tether runs him back to the other. Now and always.  
_And that’s just fine.  
_“William.”  
“Doctor,” he murmurs without opening his eyes.  
“I do believe you just carried me over the threshold.”  
“I’ll carry you back if you don’t go to sleep.”


End file.
